Watchers in the Dark
by Mister Cellophane
Summary: A Werewolf can not always keep itself from hurting others, and sometimes they slip up. This is a tale of a little boy, a wizard, a victim, and how even in a situation of utter pain, one can die with love in their heart. A bit DARK, but EXCELLENT writing!


**Summary:** A Werewolf can not always keep itself from hurting others, and sometimes they slip up. This is a tale of a little boy, a wizard, a victim, and how even in a situation of utter pain, one can die with love in their heart. A bit DARK, but EXCELLENT writing! R&R, if you can! NO FLAMES!

**Disclaimer: **I only own the plot.

**A/N:** This was going to be a multi-chapter slash fic, wherein the boy didn't die, turned into a Werwolf, moved to Canada when he was 17, and fell in love with another Wizard boy at school, but it wasn't the best idea, so I just posted the first chapter, which is some of the best damn writing I've ever done. I hope you enjoy this, it's a little sad, but holds some revelation. Very bitter sweet. Read and Review, but NO FLAMES! Thanks!

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Watchers in the Dark.

A little boy, around the age of five, but rather small for his age, sat swinging his legs back and forth on a rotting log in the forest behind his cottage home. His arms were splayed out behind him, elbows propping himself up, and head tilted towards the sky, watching clouds go by and trying his best to find out what they were. A smile crossed his face that only little boys and men who haven't really grown up yet can get as his short black hair whipped around his face and over his eyes in the wind.

It was starting to drizzle as the clouds darkened and the wind picked up. He sat up straight and wrapped his arms around his wiry frame, now looking up at the sky warily. The smile was gone and was replaced with a scowl. Why did the dark clouds have to come and ruin his fun? He had only been away from home for an hour, after all, and didn't want to go back just yet. Even though he should've.

Hugging his arms tighter around his body, he turned to look to the west, and noticed the sun setting, causing streaks of pink and gold to illuminate the sky and cast whispers of colour on the looming clouds to the East. He should've been back by now. Even if it _wasn't_ raining. Mommy was going to be mad, and he knew it.

He slipped off of the log, causing it to scrape along his bottom, before he hit his feet to the ground, hearing the sound of leaves softened with rain beneath his feet. It was Fall, his favourite season, and he looked around and smiled slightly at the array of colours before him. This forest was teeming with life. During the day, it was life he enjoyed; squirrels, chipmunks, all kinds of birds that he liked to chase around and watch their colours vanish beneath the canopy as the blended in with their environment. His environment.

Everyday, for the last two years, he would come here, even in the winter. He would walk through the forest and chase it's inhabitants, catch frogs in the ponds and tadpoles before then. He would crawl on the earth and look for bugs, as seemed to be a major fascination for all boys of his age. He didn't have any friends. He used to, when his neighbors still had their son, but he had died. Of course, he had been told that he went to a school for young boys, a boarding school, and he believed it still.

All his other neighbors were old, and decrepit. They didn't want a small boy running around their knobby knees and breaking expensive vases. Besides, none of them were like him or his parents. None of them carried sticks around that shot out jets of light and sparks and made things happen, and he would bet his bottle cap collection that none of them accidentally made their China cabinets explode and cover the dining room in glass when their mother's took their deserts away because he didn't eat his broccoli. He would bet on his rubber bands in a cardboard box at home beneath his bed, that none of _them_ were wizards.

Like his family.

Wishing he had worn his red windbreaker outside today, he clutched his upper arms and began to walk back. He may have liked the day creatures, but it was creatures in the dark that scared him. He looked up and felt a sudden rush of panic as he saw that the clouds were now purple as was the sky, and the last bit of light was sinking faster then it really should behind the horizon. Scared, he walked faster, not noticing that he had turned a left, instead of the appropriate right. He headed deeper and deeper into the forest and began to worry. It had never taken this long to get home before, as he never went too deep into the forest in case he got lost.

As the rain slipped into heavy beating down pour, and the moon eclipsed above the treetops, he looked around at the unfamiliar markings of the clearing he was in, and admitted to himself as tears rolled down his puffy, pale cheeks, that he was lost.

Shaking, he looked up and his eyes widen as he saw that the moon was full. He had heard stories of the beasts that lurked in the dark shadows beneath such a moon, with long claws and teeth the size of butcher knives. His Grandfather had told him these things, supposedly to keep him out of the forest at night, but his mother had gotten mad and sent the boy to bed. He didn't want to come across one of these Dark Creatures.

Suddenly, he got a prickly feeling on the back of his neck, and looked 'round to see what had caused this reaction. His breath stopped and his eyes widened, as his limbs froze up and all sense of feeling left, leaving only numbness. He was only dimly aware of the fact that he was cold, as he stared at two, bright yellow eyes gleaming out of the dark from the edge of the clearing. The eyes began to emit a long, low growl, or so it seemed to him. Slowly, they grew closer, until they had a face, and front legs; Then a midriff, hindquarters, and a tail.

It was a wolf. A humongous wolf. It was nearly five times bigger then he was, and a heck of a lot meaner, by his standards. It's front hunched down and it swayed slightly as it walked towards him. Then, without warning, it reared up on it's great back legs and howled a long, slow, sensual tune to it's Master, the Moon.

The sound of the sudden howl jarred the boy's brain back into action. Feeling seemed to spread like wildfire through his limbs and his breathing came back, still quicker then usual and close to hyperventilating. He turned on his heel and ran as fast as his stubby legs could carry him, not caring anymore if he was lost, or what direction he was going in, just as long it was away from that…that thing!

Although, even if he didn't want to admit it to himself, or if he was too scared for any coherent thought, he knew, deep in the back recesses of his mind, that this was no ordinary wolf. It was a creature of the deep. A lurker of the shadows. A pillager of lives. This was a Werewolf.

So, he ran.

He could hear the beast growling behind him, and the heavy footsteps as it smashed it's own weight down upon the soggy ground, he could even hear it's short gasps of breath from running even through the hard pouring rain. He supposed it was fear that had made him so alert, but it was also being afraid that he despised. He figured that if he had one of Mommy and Daddy's sticks, he could kill the thing. Well, not necessarily kill it. He also knew that they were human beings and had no control over their actions on the night of the Full Moon. But that didn't make them good…

With a sharp cry of anguish, he felt his foot snag on an upturned root, and the sudden rush of wind and the leaping in the chest when realizing one is just about to fall. The one thing that was running through his head as he felt the hard ground beneath him and the rough scrapes on his elbows and knees, as well as the rip in his sleeve, was 'I'm dead'.

He just had a split second to turn over before the Wolf was standing over him, breath rank, and drooling down it's furred chin onto the boy's cheek. And good thing too, or his spine would have been severed and he would have died. Or would that have been better?

He screamed an unearthly, high pitched scream as he felt three sharp talons dig along his stomach. He felt as if his insides were being torn out of him, which was truth, as part of his intestines were now lying on the ground beside him, still attached to his body and still keeping him alive, but unprotected. Blood was pouring slightly slower then it normally would, as the Wolf reared it's ugly head.

Again, he screamed, loud, and long, as it sunk it's teeth deep into his shoulder blade, ripping apart the flesh and digging into his collar bone. He presumed that the taste of blood must have filled the Wolf's mouth, and that he enjoyed it, as it howled once more. As it reared up again, to administer the final strike, it swiveled it's head side to side, before whining slightly and abruptly running off into the woods to the left.

As darkness washed over the boy, he thought he heard a shout, distant, but yet, so close at hand. It came to him in the motherly voice he had memorized, with it's rich honeyed tones.

"Mark? MARK!?"

But this time, it was laced with worry and fear, which brought a bit of hope into the young boy's dying heart.

'Home,' He thought, 'I must have made it home…'

He died with a smile on his face.

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A/N: Thanks for reading, now REVIEW! NO FLAMES! Thanks!


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